A U.S. Senate plan to purchase new border protection beside the Mexican border by hiking H-1B fees on offshore corporations was met with sharp censure by India's major IT group. But what might have actually inflamed offshore suppliers was Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) description of their industry.

"There is a part of H-1B that is ill-treated, and it is by corporations that are not American corporations or yet corporations that are creating something," Schumer said Thursday on the Senate floor. "Somewhat, they are corporations that take foreign folks, carry them here, and then they stay here for some years, learn their knowledge, and go back. We believe we must increase the fees when they do that," he said.

India's largest IT industry group, the New Delhi-based National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), is moving rapidly to curse out the consequences the Senate's action. It named the fee raise a "not direct form of protectionism" and said it might infringe trade agreements. "It obviously seems to be an election-driven, political move," NASSCOM President Som Mittal said in an interview.

The Senate accepted a $2,000 fee increase on H-1B visas to counterbalance the $600 million charge of Mexican border security improvements. The Senate's action has to be submissive with a same bill in the House, which doesn't contain an H-1B or L-1 fee hike.

The fee hike takes aim at foreign corporations by specifies that it only applies to those that have 50% or extra of their U.S. employees on H-1B and L-1 visas. That straight hits the business model of offshore suppliers.